Re: Fwd: Hofstra show

Thanks, Kitty.  It is standard practice to write one Section for Herbaceous
Perennials, and another Section for Bulbs, Corms and Tubers.  
The person who wrote this said there wouldn't be much in the way of 
herbaceous perennials at this time of the year, so she thought that
if she put them all together and made an "any other" class she would
be covered.  Personally, I think it was a pretty sloppy way to handle
it, but this person is a noted expert, so who am I to say.  The only
thing is that I am on the evaluating panel for the show's application
for awards, and since I am the state's Horticulture Schools Chm., 
the panel expects me to know such answers.  I just didn't want to
stick my neck out and make a stupid error if the rest of the world
thought bulbs were obviously herbaceous perennials.
Auralie


In a message dated 04/20/2005 10:31:57 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
4042N15@nationalhearing.com writes:
From Botanica's glossary:
Herbaceous - In botany, the adjective describing herbs.  But among
gardeners, it is used for perennial plants which die down to the ground each
year, for example, delphiniums.

IMO, a bulb MAY be an herbaceous perennial according to the definition, but
only if they hadn't written an additional category for bulbs.  Realize too,
that some bulbs are evergreen.  Another thought comes to mind - and I'm no
expert on this, but traditional perennial plants, when they die back, go
dormant.  Many bulbs are never completely dormant, like Lilium, even though
they may seem to be.

Her broad definition of: "...herbaceous perennials as those that die back to
the ground in the winter and come up each spring.", doesn't apply to many
bulbs.  Grape Hyacinths are green all winter.  Tulips go dormant in summer.

Then you have the word bulb.  Is she including all geophytes?  corms?
(crocosmia), tubers (dahlias), and tuberous roots (daylilies)

She may have a certain technicality in her favor, but it opens up such a
huge can of worms, that it would simply be smarter to set geophytes off into
a separate category.  And even then, I have trouble with where to put
Hemerocallis. ;+)

Kitty

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